


Meanwhile

by jonesyslug



Series: In The Shadows [2]
Category: Doctor Sleep - Stephen King, IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King, The Shining (1980), The Shining - Stephen King
Genre: Deleted Scenes, Dreams and Nightmares, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2020-09-25
Packaged: 2021-02-18 23:54:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22001917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jonesyslug/pseuds/jonesyslug
Summary: Scenes during the continuity of Shine & Shadow, happening elsewhere.
Series: In The Shadows [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1583764
Comments: 37
Kudos: 36





	1. Eddie Kaspbrak is A Magnetic Tumor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey hey heyheyeyeheyehey. So, I always write multiple versions of a chapter, and sometimes stuff gets tossed out completely, but just because it doesn't fit into the chapters doesn't mean it's not part of the story. So I guess these are the deleted scenes. If you haven't read Shine & Shadow but you're reading this uhhhhh HELLO, have fun!

When Richie finally forgot everything about Derry, Maine, it only made his step brother Danny more curious. Danny was lucky, if you could call it that, because he could find people, if he really wanted to. Danny kept a dream journal, where he wrote down and sketched things from other people's dreams. In it was a list of names, and slightly vague, general sketches of faces. Almost like a police artist's sketches. 

One name always stuck out more than the others, in Richie’s mind:  _ Eddie Kaspbrak.  _

Waiting until he heard Richie’s whistling sleep-breathing, Danny sat up with a flashlight, and grabbed his journal from under his pillow. He wanted to know if it was just Richie who’d forgotten like this, or if the other people involved had any similar side-effects from...from what, Danny didn’t really know. But it had been big, and it still lived on Richie’s brain, like a leech asleep. It wanted to be fed, but didn’t know what to feed off. 

Danny stared at the picture, concentrating as hard as he could to turn his scribbled lines into a real face in his mind. He closed his eyes and breathed in deep, thinking about the little details he knew were there, thinking about the name. 

**_Eddie Kaspbrak… Eddie Kaspbrak…. Eddie Kaspbrak…._ **

Eddie woke up with a headache at 1:27 in the morning. It wasn’t unusual for Eddie to get a headache, but this one struck him hard, like-

_ A mallet?  _

Eddie sighed as he sat up, and rifled through his bedside drawer in the dark. He found the bottle with the right shape and the right rattle to be his ibuprofen, and popped it open. Then he groped for the glass of water he kept on his bedside table. 

_ You have to drink a whole glass of water with pills, Eddie, or they’ll eat a hole in your stomach. _

When the glass was empty, he lay back down. He felt like he was being watched. Paranoia was not an unfamiliar feeling to Eddie Kaspbrak, but that didn’t mean he had to  _ like  _ it. His hand twitched. Sometimes he’d get a twinge in his arm. His mom said that the bone had been broken, but he didn’t remember it. Not even sort of. When he tried, there was just nothing there. His mother would always say Derry was a dead-end town and she was glad to be out, and he’d agree with her, because agreeing was easy. It was easier to believe it was a worthless, boring place that he’d just forgotten about, rather than wonder why part of his life  _ just wasn’t there.  _

So why was his mind reaching so hard for it, right now? He’d come to terms a long time ago with not even trying to remember. He supposed, late at night, when you were paranoid and you felt small and there were a million invisible eyes on you, all hiding in the darkness, that you thought about strange things. 

Danny Torrence was reaching around in Eddie’s head, very  _ nearly  _ undetected. If he could, he would have apologized for the headache. But he couldn’t leave anything, he could only take. He could hear people who weren’t Eddie, mostly just Sonia, thinking inside Eddie’s head, the way he heard people from Richie’s head. Eddie was made of magnets, too. He had the same pulsing, psychic mass on his brain, like a tumor. Yes, it was the same, but it was Eddie’s at the same time. Unique. Like a snowflake in a snowball. It was intricate and individual and indecipherable from the rest of what it was a part of unless you could look especially closely. 

The harder Danny looked, scrubbing around for  _ anything,  _ any memories or Derry, or Richie, or any of the other names he’d heard, the worse Eddie’s headache got. It was right behind his eyes, stabbing pain right into his brain. 

_ Tumor. _

Danny hadn’t planted the thought with his evaluations of Eddie’s mind. That was all Eddie. Eddie’s breathing was growing rapid. He shuffled around in his drawer again, pulled out a cassette player, headphones, and an inhaler. He put the headphones on, and at the same moment that he released his inhaler, he punched the play button on the tape player. 

It started in the middle of a song that Danny had never heard before. But it made Eddie feel good. 

Danny didn’t know what the song meant. Wasn’t a Babushka a Russian doll or something? 

He didn’t pay attention to the song, or why Eddie liked it. Eddie was focusing on his breathing and the music and that meant his higher brain, the part that was controlled by the cosmic growth, was unoccupied. 

It was empty. A few echoes of Sonia thinking about her boy, his friends, his grades, anything. His health, mostly. Danny didn’t like her much. She liked it better when Eddie was sick. It left a gross taste in Danny’s mouth. One that he would never recognize as HydrOx, Eddie’s asthma medication. 

Eddie was focusing now on the imagined eyes in the dark. He read a lot of medical books, and when he’d started forgetting, he’d gotten very interested in psychology. And he thanked the stars for that, because he knew that he could turn all those eyes into something else.

“ _ Let me dream of sheep…”  _ The woman on the tape sang. And that’s what Eddie turned the eyes into. Harmless little sheep he could count and corral. By the time he got to 17, he was focusing so hard that he ejected Danny out of his head like a VHS tape.    
  
Danny hit is head on the bedpost. “Fuck.”

Richie sat up, suddenly. “Dan?” he called, blindly. It was dark, and it wouldn’t have mattered anyway, because he wasn’t wearing his glasses. 

“Sorry, Richie.” Danny whispered, out of breath.    
  
“Man, if you’re gonna jerk-”   
  
Danny sighed. “I  _ wasn’t.  _ I had a bad dream.”   
  
“Mhmm. Whatever.” Richie said, laying back down. 

Danny had gone all the way to New Jersey and come back with nothing. Well, there were more names on the list. He’d try a new one tomorrow night. In the den, too, so he wouldn’t wake Richie up. He felt sort of guilty about poking around like this,when he was pretty sure now that he’d find nothing. 

But something was wrong with his brother, and he wanted to know  _ what.  _

_ Someone  _ had to know, didn’t they?

Eddie’s headache went away, finally. He put his walkman away, and rolled onto his side, pulling the blankets to his chin. That night, he dreamed about getting lost in the snow and getting sick. No matter what he did or which direction he went, he couldn’t find a town, and it just kept getting colder. He kept getting sicker. He was never going to find a hospital. 

When his body was finally done trying, and collapsed into the snow, numb and fading, Eddie woke up with a loud gasp, like he’d just come up from being under water.

His mom let him stay home from school that day, as long as he promised he wouldn’t leave his bed, and he’d take the medicine she gave him.

Eddie, feeling like the heart in his chest wasn’t his, this life wasn’t his,  _ Eddie Kaspbrak was somewhere else _ \- didn’t argue. It was easier to agree. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eddie is listening to the album NeverFor Ever by Kate Bush. 
> 
> Yeah, babey, Eddie can fucking EJECT Danny from his MIND! HELL YEAH! Why is that? 🤔


	2. Beverly Marsh is a Beacon For Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A few nights after visiting Eddie, Danny takes a trip to Portland, Oregon to check in on Beverly Marsh. He finds more than he expected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know if anyone reads this spin-off series, but I really enjoy writing it. I think of it like my Director's Cut scenes. I'm especially excited about the next chapter, but I really enjoyed this one too. I've missed Bev.

Danny waited until the house was still and quiet. He'd be mortified if he woke Richie up again while he was doing his weird, psychic research. 

Danny grabbed his dream journal and his hoodie and crept down the stairs and outside the back door. 

He sat on the porch, under the light of the small motion-activated bulb. He squinted at the list of names in his notebook. 

"Eddie, Stan, Bev, Mike, Ben, Bill, George, Betty, Skipper, Henry, Esther, Gretta, Dorsey, Patrick, Victor, Brenda, Matthew, Steve, Peter, Connor…" He muttered to himself, as he ran his finger down the list. He'd written down every name that had been uttered in Richie's dreams about Derry. 

Some of their faces had come through so clearly, Dan had been able to see every detail, like they were actually there with him. 

Some of them had been smudges, puffs of smoke. Some, blank, ever-shifting faces. Some of them hadn't been seen at all. 

He flipped through the drawings he'd done, trying to decide who to investigate. Apart from Eddie, the one he had the most details of was Bev. 

Beverly Marsh. He knew her full name. He saw her freckles and her dimpled smile and the key she wore on a chain around her neck. She smelled like cigarettes and Irish Spring. He knew he could find her. 

He put the notebook on the ground in front of him, the drawing of Bev staring up at him, smiling. 

He closed his eyes. 

**_Beverly Marsh. Where are you, Beverly Marsh?_ **

Beverly Marsh stirred in her sleep, turning onto her side. 

Her aunt looked at her, but didn't do anything. Bev was whimpering, but that wasn't unusual when she slept. She frequently had night terrors, but it seemed she usually slept better when she fell asleep in front of the television. As long as she didn't start crying in her sleep, her aunt wasn't going to wake her. 

The girl needed all the peaceful sleep she could get. 

She got up and draped a quilt over Bev, then went to bed herself. She said a prayer for Bev not to dream about her father. She prayed that Bev would forget Al Marsh entirely if the lord would let her. 

Bev woke up, but her body did not. She tried, thinking as hard as she could, but she couldn't so much as twitch her finger. 

She had to let it overcome her. Whatever she was going to see or experience, she had to let it happen. The harder she fought against it, the worse it always was. 

She accepted it, and let her mind settle. 

She was standing in the snow. There was a boy there, with pale skin, and sad, blue eyes. He was staring at her with his eyes as wide as dinner plates. 

"Can you see me?" 

Bev nodded. "Yeah. What's your name, do you remember?" 

"I'm Danny. You're Beverly Marsh." 

"You're only sixteen? Gosh, I'm so- I mean, I'd be sorry no matter what, but that's so young." 

"So young for what?" 

Bev looked at him in confusion. She stepped forward, hand extended, and poked him gently on the cheek. 

"You're not dead. You're not dead?" 

Danny could feel it now. Bev had a particular proclivity towards the dead. Death didn't want her yet, but it stalked her. 

Bev could shine. That's why she could see him. That's why she'd come through so clearly. Bev could shine, and it was strong, but something was wrong with it. 

The growth on her mind, the sibling if Richie and Eddie's, was different. It was awake and aware. It was hungry. It drew things towards it, just like the others did, but it showed these things to Beverly. 

"I- my brother, he's got a mind like yours." 

Bev shook her head. "No, I heard it. My mind is like  _ yours."  _

Danny blinked. "Well, it is but… my brother has this thing-" he pointed to the back of his head. "You have one too." 

"Abscess…" Bev said. 

Dan nodded. "But it's not physical, it's-" 

"It's the lights, isn't it?" Bev asked, sounding scared. 

"The lights?" 

Bev nodded. "They shine brighter and brighter until they show me something. I see all these things, people in pain. People dying. I don't know who they are, but my heart crumbles every time. It's like- it just hurts so bad…" 

"Did you see the lights in Derry?" Danny asked. 

"Derry? Are you from Derry?" She asked, sounding a bit panicked. 

Danny shook his head vigorously. "No, no I've never been there. My brother grew up there, and I just wanted to know if you remember-" 

"No, I don't remember Derry. I don't remember-" she held her hands out to Danny, showing her palms. "I have these scars but I don't remember if it was-"  _ Dad. Gretta. Henry.  _ "I don't remember how I got them."

"You remember Gretta and Henry too?" 

"Ye- well, no. I… those names are in my head but I don't know who they are. I don't know why they're here." Bev said, putting her palms to her temples. She shut her eyes.

The snow was falling harder. "Did you bring them here? Those names?" 

"I'm sorry, Beverly. I just need to know what-" 

Danny could feel Beverly's shine piercing through his mind like a railroad spike. 

"I don't remember Derry. I don't remember your brother. I don't know what's wrong with us! I don't know why he doesn't remember either! But I know it's dangerous, Danny, and I know you're making it worse!" 

"Beverly, calm down. You can make it go away. You just have to count to ten. Count to ten and they go away. They're not real." 

"You're real, aren't you?" 

Danny didn't have a response. He just looked at Bev's big, watery eyes. 

"The harder I try to remember, the worse my nightmares get. I think something is trying to punish me. It's trying to keep me out. And you know what? I want to be kept out! I don't want to see this stuff!" 

"I just need to know if Richie-" 

" _ Richie _ ?" Bev gasped. 

"My brother is-" 

"I've seen it. I've seen him-" Bev closed her eyes. Danny tried to listen to her but she was putting up powerful walls. Walls that manifested literally between them in her mind, until Danny was alone in a dark box. 

"You have to leave!" He heard Bev scream. "You have to leave right now!" 

Danny was kicked out of her mind even harder than he'd been pushed from Eddie's.

He was back on the porch, shivering. There were teardrops on his notebook, on the drawing of Beverly. 

Danny reached up and touched his face. His cheeks were dry. 

He reached down to the notebook, running his hand through the smudging ink. 

"Sorry, Bev." He whispered. 

Danny snuck back into the house and crawled into bed. He didn't know what to think. He felt like he'd gotten some answers, but that they were all in code, and he didn't have the key to decipher them. 

That night, Bev dreamt of a hotel and a fire. She watched a man burn up and die. She did not cry. He was a bad man. She could feel it in her heart. She could feel in her heart that even though he was gone, he was still causing people pain. 

  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song? 
> 
> Steal Away - Murder By Death


	3. Betty Ripsom is Not Here

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The night after his visit with Bev, Danny decides he needs to find out more, and fast.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh this was just a hoot to write....

Danny heard the slight whistling of Richie's sleep breathing. He rooted around for his notebook, then snuck down the stairs. 

He laid down on the couch with his flashlight and flipped through the wrinkled pages, looking at his hastily written notes and his vague drawings.

He looked at a picture he'd drawn of a girl Richie dreamt about. He ran his hands over the dimples he'd made in the paper, coloring in her dark eyes. 

Something was so striking about her, sort of eerie. He wondered if she'd be able to see him like the last girl had. 

Maybe he was getting closer. Betty stared up at him with her black ink eyes, looking right into his soul. 

Dan swallowed hard and focused on making an image of her in his mind. 

**_Betty? Where are you, Betty?_ **

Everything went cold. 

**_Betty?_ **

Danny opened his eyes. 

"Betty?"

Everything was black. Not dark, actually black, and slick like oil. Glistening and sticky and thick. It oozed into Danny's shoes and made a sickening squish with every step he took. 

The air was thick and damp. The smell was putrid and metallic. Danny looked all around, trying to make out something that made sense. 

Light was shining somewhere high above him, three suns orbiting each other in a manic spin. The lights were blinding to look at, but visibility around him was low. 

It seemed like he was in a cave. Like he was somewhere under the Earth or inside the Earth or… somewhere disconnected from Earth entirely. 

Wherever he was, there was no sky.

This didn't seem like anyone's mind he'd ever been in. Some minds looked like houses or forests, familiar things, places where people kept their hearts and their thoughts. Minds were usually comfortable to an extent. This was like nothing he'd encountered before. He wasn't entirely sure it  _ was _ someone's mind. 

But it was somewhere. Somewhere he could only get to because of his shine and because he was looking for Betty Ripsom. 

He heard whispers behind him and spun around. 

Nothing. More black. Starting to rise in points like the ferrofluid his teacher had shown him in science class. Then they lost their uniformity and started to spread out like tentacles, tree branches, and bolts of lightning. All gaining minds of their own and rising high above him. 

All the inky, black substance dripping off of the tendrils, going the wrong way. Falling up. Danny watched it as it rose, floating towards the lights. The light shone through the liquid. 

Not black. Not ink, not oil. 

Red. Blood. Blood reaching out towards him like a thousand hands. 

"Betty!" Danny screamed, running from it. "Betty, where are you?" 

He heard laughter and turned towards it. He panted, trying to catch his breath, and looked around. The blood had stopped chasing him. It was behind him, waving slowly, like flowers in the wind. 

A pale arm revealed itself. "Hi, Danny." 

Danny stared. The light source seemed to be the arm itself, but it wasn't glowing. It was visible as though it was in the daylight. Danny looked around. The whole place was a void. Danny looked back at the arm. Was it attached to anything? Where was the voice coming from?

A shoulder appeared, then half a face, like someone peeking out from behind a door. It was Betty. Danny knew that. Betty smiling shyly with her hair dangling in front of her face.

"Did you come to play, Danny?" She asked, giggling. 

"Betty, what's going on?" Danny asked, dread rising. The blood started dripping upwards faster and bigger, growing around him like it was trying to block him in. 

Betty took a side step and became completely visible. She tucked her hair behind her ear and waved. Black gunk dripped from her eyes and mouth. The blood. This blood that wasn't human. 

She blinked and her eyes turned gray. She seemed to be rotting right in front of him, and he realized he was definitely not in Betty's mind. 

Betty Ripsom was dead. 

"I can do a real neat trick, Danny. I can stand on my head! Wanna see?"

Danny shook his head. He tried to back up, but his shoulder hit the wet pillar of thick blood. It splashed and washed over his head. It was tepid and slimy. Danny scrambled away from it, but the only direction to go was towards Betty. 

Betty grinned and leaned forward. The way she was moving was unsettling, but Danny couldn't tell why just yet. 

And then all of the sudden, with a loud, wet  _ thwack,  _ Betty's torso fell onto the ground. 

Danny screamed, but Betty was unphased, still giggling as her disembodied legs climbed onto her shoulders. One foot perched itself, tip toe, on top of her head. 

"See, Danny? See?" She asked, with wild glee. 

Danny stumbled back and fell completely through the wall of blood behind him. He was covered in it, surrounded by it, crawling as fast as he could to get out of it. 

When he got to the other side and could breathe again, everything smelled worse. It was a rotten, dead smell. No, something beyond dead. Something  _ worse than.  _

He heard a buzzing noise faintly. "No, no,  _ no, no, no."  _ Danny put his fists to his ears and shook his head. "No!" It grew louder. Louder and closer.

Suddenly, the wall of blood parted, and Betty stuck her head through. 

Death flies. They were swarming her. She was covered in them. They were crawling all over her face, in and out of her nostrils, flying into her mouth, landing on her open eyes. 

She began to speak, but her voice was deep and horrifying. Her voice was that of the  _ worse than,  _ coming through grimy, razor sharp teeth. 

"Come on, Danny. You want to play, don't you? You wouldn't be snooping around this much if you didn't want to be a part of it all, would you? I had so much fun with Richie, and he can't even see  _ half  _ of what you see!" 

Danny scrambled back, but his hands kept slipping on the blood. He couldn't get away. 

"We could have  _ such _ a good time, Danny! I can show you everything. I can show you why that old hotel picked you." 

Danny shut his eyes. He had to leave. He had to get out of here. 

The thing was drawing closer. It's shape was changing from Betty. It was trying to show Danny what it really was. 

"Don't you want to know why you're like this, Danny?" 

Danny could feel it in his stomach. If he opened his eyes, he was doomed. He'd see something that was impossible to conceive. It would drive him- 

"Insane!" The thing laughed. "That's right, Danny, I'm going to drive you insane! I'm going to make you go crazy, and then you can come home and play with your daddy!" 

Danny shook his head. He covered his face. 

"Oh, you can't put  _ me  _ in one of your little boxes, Danny. Good ol' Dick never told you about me? Halloran never warned you that there were worse things than The Overlook? What a cowardly old man." 

"Shut up! Dick is my friend!" 

"Friends look out for each other, Danny. Friends tell each other the truth. I'm trying to be a friend. Don't you want to be my friend?" 

"No. No! This isn't real. You're not here. You're not here!" 

Dan could feel the muck around him starting to fade. He could feel the atmosphere melting away. The presence of the thing growing weaker. 

"Oh but I am real, Danny." It said, quietly. "And I am  _ somewhere."  _

Danny woke up, and he felt like there was breath on his ear. Like that last thing had been whispered right to him.

He rushed over to the light switch. The den was empty. The house was quiet and still. 

Danny put his hand over his heart and started to take deep breaths. He looked up at the ceiling, thinking of Richie sleeping in the room above him. 

What the  _ hell  _ had Richie seen? What had he been through? 

Danny realized his face was damp with tears and pulled the collar of his sweatshirt up over his face, wiping at his eyes. 

Danny turned the overhead light off and turned on the television. He crawled back onto the couch and stared blankly as a man cut through a soda can with the knife he was displaying. 

It was almost dawn. The sun was peeking up over the hill. 

_ We're gonna be okay. We're gonna be okay.  _

**_For now._ **

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AH THE FIRST APPEARANCE IF PENNYWISE IN THIS SERIES! How exciting and dreadful 
> 
> Song of the day: 
> 
> Buried in Water - Dead Man's Bones


	4. Mike Hanlon is the Sentry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mike is the last man standing in Derry. The burden is enormous.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love Mike.... Also wow two updates in one week! 
> 
> Chapter song: Enter Sandman - Metallica
> 
> Book Lore: Alive Mike Parents :)

Mike stared at the water stains on the ceiling. When he was a small child, he loved to watch them turn into happy little images. A smiling snowman, an ice cream cone, things like that. 

He could still see that, but it was more like projecting a memory onto a template than really seeing it. 

If he wasn't looking directly at it, it would shift and morph and make faces at him. Terrible faces. All teeth and eyes, menacing. Threatening him. 

A balloon, taunting him.

So he'd stare right at it until the room was completely dark. 

The streetlight across from his house didn't go off until midnight. 

It used to not go off until the sun came up. 

But this was Derry. Terrible things did happen, yes, worse than he could imagine happening anywhere else, but… people forgot. 

People forgot harder and faster in Derry than they did anywhere else. Hell, most of them pretended not to notice in the first place. 

But Mike noticed. Mike saw and knew. 

Ben had been the last holdout, the last one of the lucky seven to leave Derry. Leave and forget. Bill had been the first. 

Mike was there for the whole fallout, every time. Someone moved, crossed their heart and promised to write, to call, and never did. 

It was a tough pill to swallow, but Mike figured if there was an upside, at least his friends didn't have to think about  _ It _ anymore. 

A tidy little lie to tell himself, because he knew they still saw things, in blinks and flashes, they just didn't know what it meant anymore. 

Eventually they might forget entirely. Time and distance both seemed to be large contributing factors in how much and how far you forgot things.

Then again, Beverly was all the way in Oregon, and she- 

Mike chewed at the inside of his cheek. Maybe everyone else would eventually forget, completely and totally, but Bev and Stan wouldn't. 

They had been in the deadlights. 

Stan never told anyone, but they all knew. They could all feel it in the air around him. In the mouth of the monster, with its teeth in his flesh, he'd been blinded by those lights. 

The street light finally flicked off, and Mike rolled into his side. 

He knew there was something in his head too, something from Pennywise, from the deadlights, but it wasn't the same. He'd only gotten a glimpse of them. He hadn't been caught in them like Bev and Stan. 

Whatever it was, it made things worse. He knew that It was dormant, for now. That it was sleeping. 

He knew it wasn't dead, and he didn't know how long it would be until it came back. 

He'd isolated some patterns but as far as he could tell, no one had fought it before the way he and his friends had. That might change things. 

Everyone else was gone, and It was a part of Derry, It was the beating heart of Derry. He felt sure that it could only attack in Derry. 

And that meant every shadow, every drain pipe, every dark corner, that could be It. And that would be it. Just Mike Hanlon. Another missing poster stapled onto a telephone pole until the first storm came, and they always came so quickly… then the ink would run and the paper would get soggy and fall off the staples to be carried off into the wind and wind up trash somewhere else where no one had ever even heard the name Mike Hanlon. 

Mike ran his thumb over his palm. The scar. Forever friendship from Stan, that was the intention of the pact. And then Bill had made it something bigger. Bill had taken this act of love born out of gratitude that they'd survived, and he'd made them all promise. 

Bill didn't even fucking remember that anymore. Mike could pass Bill on the street, and as long as they weren't near Derry, Bill would look right through him. Mike could tell him anything, all the secrets they'd shared, he could yell  _ HI-HO SILVER!  _ and there would be nothing but confusion. Fear. 

Mike pulled the blanket over his head. He remembered saying goodbye to Ben. It had been absolutely dismal. Because they'd been through it five times already and Ben knew too. Ben knew. He didn't even say he'd phone or write. He'd just hugged Mike hard and sobbed onto him. 

_ I love you, I miss you already, I hope I see you again someday  _

Ben had been a slobbering mess, whispering all these things onto Mike's shoulder, and Mike could barely hear because he was crying, too. 

Back then Mike hadn't noticed yet, that there was a simmering mass on his brain, because he shared the burden with someone. Alone though, it could become too much to bear. 

He kept an ear to the ground about It. About whether other kids were heading or seeing the tell-tale signs. 

No one was. And hardly anyone went missing anymore. If they did, they didn't wash up half-eaten anymore. 

No, Mike was pretty sure Pennywise was resting. Waiting for a better chance. But Mike could still feel it all the time. It ran up his spine like it was plugged into the base of his skull. A projector that could show him things and people that had lost their fights. Things that his mother called nightmares, but he knew were something worse. They were real, and all he could do was watch. 

Mike thought that sometimes, when he caught his father looking at him, that somehow he  _ knew.  _ He knew what Mike had done. What Mike had seen. 

It seemed sometimes like he was just waiting for Mike to ask the right question. That he had something to tell him, but he couldn't say it straight out. It felt like some enormous, confusing fairytale. 

Mike felt a strange spark when he was alone with his father sometimes. There was a bit of a mark on him, too. Not as strong as his own, but something. Whether his father knew or not, Pennywise had affected his life in some way. 

But Mike was too scared to ask. He never had nightmares about his father and he sorely didn't want to. He had nightmares about his best friends in the whole world, suffering and confused, scattered across the country like God had scattered the people after the tower of Babel. The tower to reach God. 

Maybe when you reached for a god, you simply weren't allowed to be the same after. Going after a god meant being separated, lines of communication cut. Didn't matter what God. 

Boy, had they chosen poorly. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the patience with this project. Love you all. Comments make my day. If you're up to it, I'd love one !!!


	5. Stanley Uris is Good at Pretending

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stan struggles to concentrate on his homework, because something, just like always, is bugging him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> stanstanstanstanstanstan 
> 
> TW for accidental self harm.

Stan sat on the floor, books all spread out around him. He chewed on his thumbnail as he stared at the pictures. 

Everyone was meant to write a paper specific to Kentucky. There was a list in his other hand, of qualifications that had to be met, page length and citation amount, things like that. 

He was struggling to find resources for his chosen theme. The state bird, the northern cardinal. 

His first draft of the paper had exceeded the minimum length merely on memory alone. Figuring out which things he had learned from which books was something else altogether. 

And it wasn't like he'd gotten much sleep, lately. 

His mother blamed the heat for his poor sleep and constant headaches, and he would have loved to agree with her. But it was something else. 

Something. Something. Something…

That was just it. He had  _ no idea  _ what, just that it was specific. That it had been with him as far back as he could remember, which wasn't very far. He didn't even remember how he got all those scars on his face. 

From the reading he'd done in psychology textbooks, it was entirely possible that getting those scars was  _ why  _ he didn't remember anything. 

If his brain was trying to protect him from something, he was going to let it. Even if  _ something  _ still lingered, making his palms sweat and his throat dry. Even if the memory had left an eternal mark on his soul somehow, where his consciousness couldn't reach it but where it could still remind him to be afraid. Like the scars on his hands. 

His mother said he probably got them from playing too recklessly. Stan had not really believed that, because he didn't think himself capable of being reckless, but perhaps at one time he had been. He had been and that was why he couldn't be now.

He learned his lesson, the way every child did when they inevitably touched the iron or the stove or fell off their bike and scraped their knee for the first time. 

He learned he could be hurt. He had apparently learned it too much and too quickly and it left him with- whatever this thing was. This thing feeding off him. Fangs stuck in his brain, something sucking down every last bit of his brain, his spirit, his fear. 

His fear. He did not want to be afraid. Told himself he was better than fear. Fear was stupid. Sinful, even? 

He was not above fear though. He knew in his mind, really, that no one was, but it still made him feel weak. 

_ You're still here, you're alive, you're fine. You're not normal but that's okay. You're good at acting normal. Just do your homework.  _

That voice that was so clear and confident that he did not believe it was his own rang out in his brain. He'd spaced out again. He always got in trouble for that in class. Straight A's, but always spaced out. Always being referred to the school counselor and only going when someone physically led him to the room. 

_ Don't make it worse.  _

That was his voice, repeating something he'd read in big, block letters on a poster in the counselor's office. 

He looked down at his notepad. That was all it said, over and over. 

_ Don't make it worse. Don't make it worse. Don't make it-  _

Suddenly there was a horrible, metallic taste in his mouth. 

He'd done it again, chewed too hard on his thumb and made it bleed. He jumped up and ran to his desk drawer, pulling out a box of bandages. It was almost empty. 

"Stop doing this shit." He whispered to himself as he put the bandage on. 

In his open drawer, he saw where he'd stashed all his drawings. Disturbingly detailed sketches of terrible things that would flash up behind his eyes and stay until he let them drip out of his pen. 

A pair of eyes was staring at him, above an impossibly large smile full of razor sharp teeth. 

He slammed the drawer shut. The drawing was in black and white, but he knew something: those eyes were yellow. 

He hated that he knew they were yellow. Like a grackle. A grackle that wanted to tear him apart.

He backed away from his desk and heard paper crumple under his feet. 

_ Don't make it wors-  _

The paper ripped from his notebook as he side stepped to avoid ruining a library book.

"Don't make it worse." He said to himself in a sigh, bending down to pick up the books. Outside the sky was as dark as the eyes of the cardinals staring up at him from the books and magazines spread across the floor. 

It was time for bed. He knew he wouldn't sleep tonight, but- 

_ You're good at pretending to be normal.  _

Stan sighed, set the books on his desk, and massaged his temples. 

He couldn’t argue with that strong little voice. As long as everyone else thought he was normal, maybe it didn't matter that he wasn't. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh right chapter song, chapter song! 
> 
> Well uh... sorry, its Bullet with Butterfly Wings by Smashing Pumpkins:
> 
> "I still believe that I cannot be saved"


	6. Meanwhile, Richie Is...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hey ho have a truly deleted scene from S&S! 
> 
> I actually never had any intention of writing this scene but one of the many, many, many times I sat down to write chapter 6, I wrote this instead. Enjoy!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh spoilers for chapter 6 and beyond of Shine & Shadow

Richie jogged towards the bike rack by the gym. This was where he and Mark usually met after school, but he wasn't sure Mark would still be there today, since he would have had to wait an extra hour while Richie sat detention. 

Richie held his breath unintentionally and he rounded the corner. 

It all fluttered out of his lungs when he saw Mark leaning against the back wall, reading, and Richie had just enough steps in between to make himself sound normal. 

"Hey." 

Mark glanced up from his comic. His eyes darted back down quickly and he smiled bashfully. 

"Hi…" 

Richie tilted his head then poked the spine of the comic book upwards so he could see what it was. 

" _ Teen Titans?  _ You read that lame-o crap?" 

Mark huffed and rolled his eyes. "I'm not having a DC vs Marvel debate right now."

"Yeah, but the X-Men ar-" 

"The Teen Titans actually met the X-Men." Mark said, matter-of-factly, turning the page. 

"You're joking." 

Mark shook his head. "Nuh-uh, I have it at home. Beast Boy talking to Kitty Pryde and everything." 

Richie scoffed. "What gives him the right?"

Mark chuckled a little and looked back up at Richie. "Actually, he kind of reminds me of you sometimes." 

"Oh, that stings…" Richie said, placing his hand over his heart. 

Mark lowered the comic. "Garfield Logan is an interesting character, I'll have you know." 

"His name is  _ Garfield?  _ Like the cat?" 

"No. Well, I mean-" 

"Oh fuck, he could totally turn into a cat if he wanted to, couldn't he?" 

"Yeah-" 

"Holy shit, he's a maniac! In two comics at once!"

Mark was getting a little red in the face, and his mouth was forming quickly and silently around words he couldn't manage to get out. 

Richie was elated. He couldn't keep from bursting into laughter. 

Mark crossed his arms. "Oh, I hate you." 

Mark gave a light laugh and shoved Richie's shoulder. 

"Hate you too." Richie said, with a lopsided grin. 

Mark and Richie stared at each other for a long moment as their laughter fizzled out. 

Mark took in a short breath, then leaned forward slightly. 

He stopped, and looked over both his shoulders. Richie followed the line of his gaze as he did so. 

"Something up?" Richie asked, quietly. 

Mark nodded, then turned his face back towards Richie. Mark tilted his head back to indicate he wanted Richie to come closer. 

"I gotta tell you something." 

Richie's hands were twitching and he was struggling not to shove them into his pockets. 

"What?" He asked quietly, leaning forward and down, closer to Mark. 

Mark leaned up onto his tip toes, with his hand cupped by his mouth to whisper to Richie. 

But Mark didn't lean all the way up to Richie's ear. Instead, he stopped and placed a gentle kiss on his cheek. 

Richie could practically hear the steam coming out of his own ears. 

"Mark?" He asked, turning his face. 

Mark was all red. His blue eyes were wide and searching. 

Richie's mouth started to twitch up in the corner, his trademark left-handed grin, and relief washed over Mark. 

Mark's hand fell from his face, but he didn't lean back. Richie reached down slowly, intertwining his fingers with Mark's. 

And then finally, they looked right at each other at the same time, pupil to pupil, like they could magnify each other into black holes and swallow each other up. 

Mark broke the eye contact. When thinking back on it, Richie would realize he'd found the only acceptable reason to do so. Mark closed his eyes and kissed Richie on the lips. 

* * *

Richie hadn't stayed very long after the kiss. One weight off his shoulders had seemingly invited new, heavier things to occupy the free space. 

He deeply regretted telling everyone off that morning when they had tried to convince him not to bike to school. Of course he'd felt like he could do it right when he woke up. But now, with an entire day of school and- and  _ more  _ between him and the last time he'd rested, and no water or ibuprofen to speak of, he really would kick himself if he didn't have to save all his strength for pedaling home. 

His leg was aching. It was throbbing. It was so bad he almost couldn't think of anything else. 

That would have been a welcome release, but no, of  _ course,  _ there was still enough room in his brain to panic. 

He couldn't stop thinking about Mark, about his eyes, his hand... Dear Lord, his lips, his lips,  _ his lips _ . He could form real, actual opinions on what it was like to kiss Mark. To kiss a boy. 

The sheer act of that data collection made his stomach lurch. He never thought he'd get to know. Especially not know these things about Mark. 

When he finally got home, he let his bike fall to the ground and he limped into the house. 

"You get detention again, Richard?" His dad asked, walking in from the kitchen. 

When he saw Richie's limp and how weary he looked, all aggravation left him. 

"Gee, Champ, come here, you need to sit down, you look… are you okay?" 

"I've been better."

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> All views and no comments makes Kirby a dull boy.


End file.
